A belt member used as a belt layer of an air-filled tire is configured such that a large number of steel cords which constitutes reinforcing cords is embedded in a rubber material parallel to each other, and the cords are arranged in the oblique direction with a predetermined angle with respect to the circumferential direction of the tire.
Conventionally, the above-mentioned belt member is manufactured such that a strip-shaped material having a relatively wide width and extending in the longitudinal direction of the cords is obliquely cut with a length corresponding to a belt width, and the respective cut fine-strip-shaped pieces are arranged such that cut ends form both side edges, and sides of the fine-strip-shaped pieces are bonded to each other thus forming an elongated belt member having a predetermined belt width. Usually, the elongated belt member formed in the above-mentioned manner is wound in a roll shape and is stocked in a state that the belt member is supported on a transport car, the belt member is transferred to a building step of a belt layer in tire building, and is supplied by pulling.
With respect to a supply method of the belt member in using the belt member, there exists a method which directly pulls out and supplies the wound belt member to a building drum using a servicer, and a supply method by fixed side cutting which cuts the wound belt member to a fixed length corresponding to one turn of the belt layer, and transfers and adheres the cut belt member to a building drum.
However, in the method which pulls out the wound belt member by the servicer and supplies the belt member to the building drum, the servicer per se is not provided with a mechanism for feeding the belt member and hence, the belt member is pulled onto the building drum by holding and pulling a distal end portion of the belt member whereby there exists a possibility that the distal end portion is deformed by a tension which acts on the belt member during such a pulling operation. Further, even during adhesion, the belt member is pulled out by making use of a rotational torque of the building drum and hence, the tension applied to the belt member is increasing thus giving rise to the elongation or the deformation of the belt member. Further, the belt exhibits small deformation at a rear end portion thereof which is adhered and hence, it is difficult to align a bonding surface of the rear end portion with the distal end portion deformed in the above-mentioned manner thus giving rise to drawbacks such as the occurrence of failure of bonding or the occurrence of swelling due to excessive overlapping.
On the other hand, in the supply method of fixed size cutting which supplies the belt member to the building drum after preliminarily cutting the belt member to a fixed length, a tension for pulling out the belt member can be reduced thus improving the supply of the belt member to some extent. However, this supply method is equal to the previously-mentioned supply method with respect to a point that the belt member is pulled out by holding and pulling out the distal end portion of the belt member, and the belt member is adhered while being pulled out by making use of the rotational torque of the building drum. Accordingly, this supply method is less than optimal in overcoming the deformation of the belt member and the failure of bonding of the distal end and the rear end portion of the belt member.
Further, in the method which stocks the elongated belt member by winding the belt member in a roll shape, it is necessary to manufacture and stock many kinds of belt members corresponding to kinds and sizes of tires to be manufactured. This requires a large space for stocking the belt members and, at the same time, makes operations such as selection, transfer, exchange and the like of the belt member corresponding to a tire which is subjected to building cumbersome thus becoming one of causes which interrupt the enhancement of manufacturing efficiency.
In view of the above circumstances, recently, as disclosed in following document 1 and document 2, there has been proposed a method in which a strip-shaped material having a relatively small width and embeds reinforcing cords in a rubber material is obliquely fed with respect to a transfer conveyer, the strip-shaped material is obliquely cut with respect to the longitudinal direction along with such feeding of the strip-shaped material, the cut belt member pieces have sides thereof bonded to each other on the transfer conveyer thus manufacturing the belt member having a length corresponding to one turn of a tire, and the belt member is directly transferred, adhered to a building drum thus performing building. Particularly, patent document 2 also discloses a method in which the belt member formed in the above-mentioned manner is wound by a winding means by way of a liner cloth for separation or is stacked on a stacker device in a developed state, and the belt member is transferred to a belt building step, and is supplied to a building drum.
However, in adhering and building the manufactured belt member to the building drum, in the same manner as the above-mentioned supply method of fixed sides cutting, this proposal also requires an operation in which an operator adheres the belt member to the building drum at the predetermined position by holding and pulling out a distal end portion of the belt member. Accordingly, as described above, the proposal is insufficient with respect to an effect for preventing the deformation of the belt member or an effect of preventing failure of bonding between the distal end and the rear end portion of the belt member. Further, since the distal end of the belt member is arranged obliquely corresponding to the cords and hence, positioning of the belt member for adhesion is not easy thus taking time and worsening operability whereby the automation of the belt adhesion and building is hampered.    Patent Document 1: JP-A-11-99564    Patent Document 2: JP-A-2000-280373